Supporting Conservation and Other Worthy Causes through Photography

Brian Hampton recently finished work on his latest custom book of wildlife photography entitled Africa II. The new book sells for a premium, not as a means to enrich Hampton, but to help enrich four worthy charities: Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in the Everglades, Ronald McDonald House, Carpenter’s Place and the Salvation Army.

Printed with an Epson Stylus Pro 9900 inkjet printer on KODAK PROFESSIONAL Inkjet Photo Paper, Lustre Finish / 255gdonated by Kodak brand licensee Brand Management Group (BMG), Hampton aimed to pack as much value in the new book as possible.

“I start off with what I think is the best camera on the market: the Canon 1 Series cameras, the 1DS Mark III, Mark IV or the 1DX. I shoot Adobe 1998 in RAW and process the images in Capture One. I follow RGB 1998 all the way through, working with the files in Capture One’s most recent version so that I have the most accurate and widest color gamut,” explains Hampton. “I have a profiled monitor and use the ImagePrint RIP and their profiles for printing. The images that are inkjet-printed are better than any printing press process, including rotogravure. And the Kodak paper was just right: it wasn’t too thick nor was it too thin and delicate.”

What the buyer of Africa II gets is a true work of art, painstakingly created from capture to the final printed book, which is bound and packaged by Mel Englander,Englander Studios, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. More importantly, it’s what the book and Hampton’s work beyond the book mean to the organizations he supports.

“Every time Brian sells a book he gives us a significant portion of the proceeds and we use that money to fund our operations,” says Jason Lauritsen, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary director, Naples, Fla. “However, the funding from the book is just one of many things Brian does to help us.”

Lauritsen says that Hampton offers much-needed volunteer labor for trail maintenance, setting up for prescribed burns, renovating buildings, coordinating buggy tours of the sanctuary’s 13,000 acres, and more. Hampton has also placed remote cameras around the sanctuary to capture photos of the sanctuary’s wildlife, including panthers, bobcats and bears.

“He allows us to use those photos to tell our story, giving us the ability to talk about our resources with vivid pictures that capture the imagination. His generosity in letting us use his images has been fantastic.

He’s been a constant source of labor that he doesn’t have to do, but he does because he loves the sanctuary. It’s an incredible model for folks to follow,” adds Lauritsen.

Africa II, as the title implies, is an expanded version of Hampton’s first Africa book, with all new images and about three times as many photos. Documenting Hampton’s travels to Botswana, Zambia and Namibia, Hampton enlisted the help of friends and other photographers to help him select the 100 or so images for the book from his catalog of 20,000-30,000 captured in Africa alone.

“I didn’t choose the images I think are the best, but what others think are the best. I had the help of a handful of other people who have great credibility with me regarding images and they picked images I wouldn’t necessarily have picked myself,” explains Hampton. “Some of them were done in black-and-white and duotone. I usually do everything in color, but a lot of people like black-and-white images. My goal is to have a book that will appeal to people to raise money for worthy causes, to find purpose and fulfill my entrepreneurial ambitions of bringing to fruition the 20,000 to 30,000 images I have taken and do something of consequence with them.”

Hampton and his wife, Donna, have traveled the world extensively since Hampton retired from his work as a software entrepreneur. Donna is a videographer and the pair often combines their work to show others the diversity of wildlife around the globe in both still and video formats.